Life Lessons: Dealing With Grief

When a parent of an adult dies, some view it as a rite of passage.  Some feel that you should take that death in stride, handle loss in an adult manner.

What does that mean? Not be sad? Be grateful that Dad did not die when you were a child?
That would be under estimating grief.  Loss does not diminish because you are an adult or because your mother or father lived a long life.

Here’s what most people don’t understand: Whether our parents live near or far, are emotionally close or distant, they anchor us in the world. Even though we know they will die someday, most of us cannot a fathom a world without them. Can you imagine a world without a sky? Of course not. It has always been there. 

Often we lose a parent after a long illness, but sometimes the death is sudden. For some the call comes on an otherwise idle Thursday.  Out of the blue, our world turns upside down without warning. How can this be? Mom was fine, and now she is not. Dad was here, and now he is not.

Sudden death compounds the loss.  That’s because there is no preparation, no goodbye, just the loudest absence one could ever imagine.  As a result in sudden death, the denial will be longer and deeper.  The more sudden the death, the longer it may take to grieve the loss.

Give yourself that time.

Our society places enormous pressure on us to get over loss.  But how long do you grieve for your mother of 40 or more years?

The answer is simple: You grieve for as long as you need to.

Essay by David Kessler. AARP: The Magazine, June/July 2015

The Power of Taking Pen to Paper

Electronic messages clearly are taking over business and personal communications.  Many of us get hundreds of emails and texts every day.  Yet when is the last time you recall receiving a handwritten pen and paper were more likely to reframeideas in their own words, engaging the brain in a more optimal way. In contrast, those using a keyboard tended simply to record, the notes on a laptop.

                Before we abandon paper and pen forever, however, we should know research increasingly shows that handwriting offers many cognitive and social benefits.

                When we write by hand instead of using digital tools, it can improve our ability to process information.  Two researchers, Pam Mueller of Princeton university and Daniel Oppenheimer, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, asked more than 300 students to use their preferred method of note taking during lectures. When tested on the material the students who handwrote their notes retained significantly more ideas than those who typed notes on a laptop.

                Why? The findings suggest that those using pen and paper were more likely to reframeideas in their own words, engaging the brain in an optimal way. In contrast those using a keyboard tended simply to record information, sometimes creating a virtual transcript.

                It appears the art of precision in handwriting also produces positive brain effects.  In one Indiana University study, psychologist Karin James conducted brain scans on preliterate children before and after they received lessons about letters.  The result: Neural activity for children who printed letters by hand was far more enhanced than it was for those who typed or traced them.        

                Another study demonstrated a connection between longhand and more fluent and sophisticatedwriting. Research led by by Virginia Berninger, a professor at the University of Washington, found that elementary school students who created essays by hand---versus using a keyboard---wrote more and wrote faster.  They expressed more ideas as well.

The impact of handwriting on brain activity is so pronounced, some medical researchers believe it could be a good exercise for keeping minds sharp as people age.

What do you think; do you agree? 

This information is taken from an ad for Pilot Pen.

***

New Words/Phrases:

1. Preferred method---usual way or method;

2. Cognitive---related to the process of knowing or understanding rationally;

3.  Note taking---recording information;   

4. Reframe---reorganize;

5. Optimal Way---best way;  

6. Neural activity---brain wave activity or electrical impulses of the brain;

7. Versus---compared to;

8. Pronounced---clear

9. Sophisticated --- developed to a high degree of complexity

10. Preliterate --- of, relating to, or denoting a society or culture that has not developed the use of writing

Excerpt from The New York Times: The Malaria fighters

Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, a 67-year-old retired Navy flier, is the head of the strikingly successful President’s Malaria Initiative.

Many malaria fighters call him one of the most quietly effective leaders in public health because he has been quietly fighting the disease, cutting yearly malaria deaths to about 600,000 from one million. Thanks to him, worldwide malaria deaths have dropped 40 percent, to about 600,000 a year from one million.

Because of the effectiveness proven, his tactics now are applied and used popularly by many countries in the world. They are prevention tactic including free distribution of nets impregnated with insecticide, indoor pesticide spraying and routine doses of malaria medicine for pregnant women and diagnosis and treatment tactic with rapid blood tests and pills that combine a new fast-acting Chinese drug, artemisinin with one of several longer-lasting drugs. In addition, Admiral Ziemer was also touring rural Myanmar because the region is the cradle of drug-resistant malaria and his agency is fighting it by subsidizing two-drug pills.

A Resilient Leader

Admiral Ziemer was a self-effacing penny-pinching approach person who was willing to fly coach everywhere, even when executives of other relief organizations traveling with him buy business-class tickets.

Besides, after Mr. Obama was elected; Admiral Ziemer drafted a resignation letter but it was declined. Then he prepared it again after the transition team for Hillary Rodham Clinton, the new secretary of state, ousted his counterpart overseeing AIDS, Dr. Mark R. Dybul. But he was asked to stay.

Moreover, he is extremely self-deprecating and amicable when paying official calls on the health minister and two national laboratories and flying as well as driving for hours to chat with village chiefs, local malaria educators, rural doctors and pharmacists, rubber tappers and road builders instead of meeting in luxurious hotels.

Motivated to Serve

From infancy through high school, Admiral Ziemer lived in Ban Me Thuot, in the central highlands of French Indochina, in what is now Vietnam. He spoke Rade, the local mountain tribe’s dialect, ate coconut “lakewater Popsicles,” chased French convoys begging the soldiers to throw chocolate and played in tunnels dug by the Japanese during World War II.

Later, when the French pulled out, a small American military base was built nearby. At school, he was just a natural leader who he taught classmates to walk on stilts and organized jump-rope sessions for 100. Because he was good-looking, athletic, smart and kind, many girls fell in love with him but he finally  married Jodi Evans, the daughter of missionaries working in Pleiku, a nearby town.

In 1964, he left for Wheaton, a religious college near Chicago. Four years later, during the Tet offensive, North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers overran Ban Me Thuot. Local families fled to the mission clinic, which then came under attack. His father was killed while trying to negotiate evacuation of the wounded. Only his mother survived — bleeding from 18 wounds. When the North Vietnamese retreated during a counterattack, they left her in a ditch. A local man rescued her and contacted the Americans. She was evacuated to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, in a plane full of wounded G.I.s.

When her 21-year-old son climbed aboard, she handed him verses she had copied from a hymn about counting one’s blessings, and naming hers — her years with her husband, her three children, her life serving the Vietnamese, her medical care and knowing Jesus.

In his senior year, facing the draft, he joined the Navy and asked to return to Vietnam. Appointed in 2006 to be the President's Malaria Initiative, Admiral Ziemer drafted a resignation letter after President Obama's election; but it was declined.

He became a helicopter pilot and flew 550 missions with the Sea Wolves, a unit based in the Mekong Delta, extracting Navy SEALs from missions and protecting the river patrol boats like those that Secretary of State John Kerry served on.

However, he was not avenging his father, he insisted in an interview that vengeance was the Lord’s and you defer to that.  Being a missionary’s son gave him a need to serve, he said. Also, he saw the fight as a civil war in which the South Vietnamese, among whom he had grown up, needed help against the North.

After Vietnam, he spent years as a squadron leader, hunting Soviet submarines and teaching, before being promoted into the Pentagon. After retirement, he headed World Relief.

A Different Approach

The malaria initiative was founded in 2005, now supports efforts by 25 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. Admiral Ziemer expressed that his motivation was to keep the malaria fighting moving, therefore, he keeps traveling to many places to save the world!

Summarized by Chi Bui

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/science/a-quiet-approach-to-bringing-down-malaria.html?_r=0

Website story, Guidelines for a Good Life

This was developed by Professor Linda Fujkawa at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii for sharing with her students and friends.

Honesty and frankness (meaning: directness) make you vulnerable(meaning: open to criticism).

                Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women.

                Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs (meaning: a person who is at a disadvantage because of discrimination) but follow only top dogs (meaning: a person who is the boss, or has political power, or high social status).

                Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

                Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

                Help them anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth.

                Give the world the best you have anyway.

 Do you agree? Share with us your rules for living a good life.

A summary of “Better ways to learn”

This is a summary of “Better ways to learn” written by Tara Parker-Pole on http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2014/10/06/better-ways-to-learn/

***

“Better ways to learn” is a post to share innovative opinions about studying and provide all learners of all fields with some useful suggestions in learning so that their study will become more flexible and fascinating in a more essential and smarter manner.

According to Mr. Carey, it is very important for learners to understand how the brain processes, stores and retrieves information. It is old habits of most students to make ourselves sit on a chair for several hours to learn or get lazy in study and only cram when a test is coming. Actually, those are not completely bad ways of learning, but they do not bring effective results. Pushing yourselves four hours on learning may make you get bored and exhausted easily and cramming for any exam does not help you remember all what you have learnt in a long time. Therefore, to solve all those limitations in study, Mr. Carey recommends many better methods of learning such as:

1. Changing learning environment frequently

Mr Carey says: “The brain wants variation. It wants to move, it wants to take periodic breaks.”

Therefore, learners can change learning environment by searching for new atmosphere that makes them feel more interested and passionate in learning.

2. Discussing with teachers to exchange about the lesson

Our brain needs signaling all important information it need to store and the best way to keep your brain aware of key materials is to give it a chance to re-check all necessary information. Your learning will be reinforced if you frequently talk to teachers about the lessons or note down some main points of the lesson on flashcards.

3. Trying a new technique called “distributed learning”, or spacing

Mr. Carey shows that learners would rather divide their time of study into small periods of time than concentrate on learning for just a definite amount of time at once time. And arranging a reasonable learning timetable is required based on each separate subject. However, for any tests, it is suggested by Mr. Carey that the optimal intervals is always needed. In his opinion, if learners have a test on Friday, Monday is a suitable time for studying and Thursday is a good choice for reviewing. Similarly, studying in one-week intervals is appropriate for those whose test is a month away.

4. Offering yourselves enough sleep and taking advantages of your sleep

Mr Carey supposes that sleep is the finisher on learning because when sleeping, what you have learnt is processed, categorized and solidified by your brain. Concretely, retaining facts are conducted during the first half of the sleep cycle while math skills are retained during the second half. Then, students can use the above rule in their study. For instance, it is the best for a student with language test to study before going to bed and then review all they have learnt in the morning. And math students should review lesson before going to bed because the second half of sleep process will help them give information to their brain.

In general, “Better ways to learn” has helped readers have a more motivated thought in learning by emphasizing the importance of understanding how human’s brain works by learners and given learners some new ways in learning.

Do you agree or disagree with facts given in the post and do you have any more motivated methods of learning?

What makes people happy?

(excerpts from an article in AARP: The Magazine, February-March 2013, by Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who have Lived the Longest.)

1. Get a Daily Dose of Friends

“A strong social network is foundational” says Jim Harter, PhD,   coauthor of Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements. His research shows that America’s happiest people get at least six hours a day of interaction with friends or family.

2. Find Your Soul mate

People in long term, committed relationships suffer less stress and live longer with fewer diseases. If you are in a long term relationship and you are happy, work hard to stay that way.

3. Ignite your Passion for Compassion

Giving feels good, and several studies have shown that givers tend to be happier people.  Jorge Moll, M.D., PhD, head of the D’Or Institute for Research and Education in Brazil showed that altruism stimulates the same pleasure centers in the brain as sugar and cocaine do. No money to give away? Give your time by getting involved in service projects at your school or community.

 What works for you? Share your secret with us!

 ******************************************************

Words	Meanings
Social network (n)	A network of social interactions and personal relationships.
Foundational (adj)	Affecting or relating to the essential nature of something or the crucial point about an issue
Interaction (n)	a mutual or reciprocal action or influence.
Long term relationship (n)	The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected for a long time
Ignite (v)	Arouse or inflame (an emotion or situation)
Compassion (n)	Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others:
Altruism (n)	Disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others
Cocaine (n)	An addictive drug derived from coca or prepared synthetically, used as an illegal stimulant andsometimes medicinally as a local anaesthetic.
Pleasure centers of the brain (n)	Pleasure center lets us know when something is enjoyable and reinforces the desire for us to perform the same pleasurable action again. This is also called the reward circuit, which includes all kinds of pleasure, from laughter to certain types of drug use.